MARY COLLIS DECORATED HER NEW HOME LIKE A MINI-RAMOMA

SHE DECORATED HER HOME LIKE A CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted September 8, 2017)

Kenyan artist Mary Collis has kept a relatively low profile since she and Carol Lees closed Rahimtulla Modern Art Museum (RaMoMa) which they’d cofounded back in 2000.

But that’s not to say her creativity died. On the contrary, over the past year alone, Mary’s put all her artistic energies into designing and rebuilding the flat she recently moved to in Westlands with her husband Alan.

The view from Mary's dining room (the glass tabletop has one of her hand-blown glass sculptures). The view looks out onto her sitting room, her balcony (left), her breakfast bar (right) and her colorful paintings on two walls on the right. Floors are solid wood and ceiling has receded LED lights. Photos by Mary Collis

It’s as if she created a miniature RaMoMa in her new home high atop her One West skyscraper flat. For even before you reach her front door, you can see Theresa Musoke’s circular sculpture inviting you to come in. You’ll also see the solid wood sculpted hippo standing guard, like a sentinel keeping watch over the artist and her spouse (who also manages the Rahimtulla Trust).

But from the moment you step inside her new home, you can’t help being struck by the modernity of its elegant, minimalist style.

 Mary designed the décor of her One West flat, which is suffused with light and featuring Mary's paintings and glass sculptures. She also designed the 'stretched' bookcase.

What’s so bedazzling is the entire décor: everything from the pearly-white high ceilings filled with recessed LED lighting to the solid wood panel floors to the living room, dining room and breakfast bar tastefully arranged in one large rectangular room.

Then just beyond the living room (which has a Jutte Gavida multi-texture ottoman as its attractive center piece) there are floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors which lead your eyes out to a beautiful view of Mount Kenya (on a clear day) and Karura Forest (now hidden somewhat behind the ever-increasing skyscrapers) and a balcony where there’s cozy seating for two.

 Jutte Gavida's designed Ottoman sits in the center of Mary's living room. See the new canonic book, Visual Voices which features Mary among 56 other outstanding Kenyan artists.

“Alan and I have a cocktail out there every evening at dusk,” says Mary rather wistfully since she can’t help being in awe of how much has changed since contractors initially arrived at the flat and gutted it room by room.

                      Mary and Alan's view of Nairobi from their balcony. Photo by Mia Collis

“We had to start over from scratch,” she adds, admitting that it’s taken many months and assistance from a friend who helped her keep the contractors focused on following Mary’s instructions.

“But the design was all mine,” says the former interior designer-turned-abstract expressionist painter whose artistic aptitude is apparent in every detail of her four-bedroom flat [the fifth one got transformed into functional storage space].

Mary’s mark is most colorfully manifest on the walls and in her elongated wooden bookcase. The walls are filled with her paintings, first seen upon entering her living room where she shares visual space with her sister Gillian whose paintings hang above some of the exquisite glass pieces that Mary made in a workshop at Kitengela Hot Glass.

Her affinity for glass is also apparent in the circular shape of her dining room table, which is surrounded by multicolored heavy plastic chairs that she says replicate the ultra-modern Carmel furniture.

                 Mary's affinity for glass evident in her glass doors that look out over Nairobi. Photo by Mia Collis

“Carmel’s chairs run a thousand dollars apiece, but I got mine for KSh3,000 on Mombasa Road,” she says, clearly pleased she could find such a bargain.

“Aren’t they comfortable!” she adds affirmatively as we sit taking tea before she escorts me from room to room, starting with a kitchen which also has another wall-to-wall mark of Mary’s. This time it’s ‘wall paper’ printed with another one of her cheerfully luminous paintings.

See the view from Mary's balcony. Here's her ultra-modern open kitchen, complete with 'wallpaper' made after Mary printed one of her colorful abstract paintings onto cloth which she then placed under glass so it fits on two kitchen walls.

Complete with a big brand new fridge, gas cooker and plenty of marble-top working surfaces, the kitchen has a pantry and annex in the next room where there’s a convenient washer-dryer combo as well as the storage space.

Meanwhile, Mary makes room for her fellow artists’ works as well as her own. They’re in the corridors and computer room which doubles as an art library filled with books about Monet and Modigliani, Rothko and Rembrandt, Kandinsky and Paul Klee.

Indeed, even her bathrooms are filled with art by Kenyans, including James Mbuthia, Richard Kimathi, Wanyu Brush and Morris Foit as well as her own award-winning photographer daughter Mia and her sister Gillian.

But perhaps the crowning glory of Mary’s interior design is in the bedrooms where each one has a different color ‘coding,’ each featuring one of Mary’s meter-square abstract paintings, the design of which is copied on cloth and reconfigured as bed cushions and comfy upholstered chairs.

Mary's art fills every bedroom at her One West flat where one wall is covered in one of her paintings, which she replicated in the form of bed cushions. Her two orange studio chairs are also covered in cotton cloth printed after one of Mary's paintings.

“I still have to finish decorating the bathrooms,” says Mary who adds there is one room her flat lacks. And that’s space for her painter’s studio. Fortunately, she’s created a new studio in a friend’s backyard where this exceptional artist can get back to the business of creating contemporary art.

Michael Soi paints on labyrinthian designs on beautiful skins

SOI’S MOTHERBOARD SHOW CHALLENGES STATUS QUO

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (margaretta.gacheru@gmail.com)

Michael Soi is a specialist in creating art that arrests, arouses and occasionally annoys. He’s been consistent in this regard. He’s annoyed everyone from fundamentalist Christians who tried to censor his “Sex in the City” which he shared with Thom Ogonga and John Kamicha at Alliance Francaise a few years back.

He upset the Chinese with his marvelous graphic series called “China Loves Africa”. They were so upset they sent embassy men to his studio at The GoDown where Michael says they essentially sought to intimidate him to stop satirizing their role in the region, especially their relationships with African women.

But Soi is not easily intimidated. On the contrary, one only needs to see his current exhibition at Circle Art Gallery entitled ‘Motherboard’ to know his art might scandalize some people. But be assured, he doesn’t mind. In fact, he clearly enjoys creating witty art that illustrates his current train of thought, be it sports, politics, Nairobi night life or bodies beautiful.

He’s especially good at satirizing hypocrites and hustlers, be they guys who frequent ‘red light’ zones or boys who pick up girls who get them visas to go overseas.

But if Soi scandalizes some, he has many more fans who love his art. So much so that those who may not afford his paintings on stretched canvas are happy just to buy a canvas bag with a pretty face on it painted by Soi.

His current show at Circle Art is, nonetheless a dramatic departure for him. And not just because he paints whole walls of the gallery with his intricate labyrinthine designs into which he inserts whole continents.

It’s the other surfaces that Soi paints on that might well raise eyebrows. But again, that’s in part the idea of his art. “I put a notice on Facebook asking for 10 women who wouldn’t mind modelling topless,” said Soi on opening night of his Motherboard show.

“I got over 390 offers with a few even offering to pay me for my painting them,” he added, amused by the overwhelming response.

Soi’s challenge was to paint on human skins, specifically on mainly women’s chests, shoulders, arms and backs. It’s true there are two images of a man ‘boxing’ with both his arms covered in the same metulous maze-like designs that he paints on women’s breasts. But for some reason, the man is the only one in this show who covers his chest. All the women (who remain anonymous) are technically topless, although they’re carefully painted as if ‘dressed up’ in Soi’s acrylic attire.

From an aesthetic perspective, Soi’s women (especially their boobs) come across as beautiful objects. But as is invariably the case, his art may upset some people, especially feminists and fundamentalists.

As for me, his art never fails to amuse me since I appreciate the way he dares to break the bonds of status quo propriety.

 

THEATRE: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR RETURNS TO NATIONAL THEATRE SEPT 14

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR RETURNS TO NATIONAL THEATRE

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted September 6, 2017)

The Kenya Cultural Centre is collaborating with the Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS) to bring back ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ this month, from September 14th through the 17th at Kenya National Theatre.

Dan Aceda is being replaced as Jesus by Martin Githingi when show opens Sept. 4, 2017

“It was a decision made due to popular demand,” says Stuart Nash, founder and managing director of NPAS. “Requests for more performances started almost as soon as we closed the run last April,” he adds.

But there will be significant changes in the show’s design this time round. For one, there’s an alteration in the cast, with Martin Githinji replacing Dan Aceda as Jesus Christ and Nice Githinji replacing Miriam Nyokabi as Mary Magdalene.

“Both of these artists are best known in the theatre world for their acting, not for their singing voices,” admits Nash. “But they are both really good singers.” So he insists the quality of vocals will not be reduced.

The other big change is that Mr Nash has decided to form his own orchestra for this production. The ad hoc group still has the same four-man rock band at the centre of the music, but the backup musicians are made up of talents with whom Stuart has worked since he first came to Kenya in 2015.

At the time he’d been invited to stage musicals for one private Nairobi school. But he branched out after staging Annie, Oliver and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, having seen there was a big gap in the local theatre scene. There was a need for a proper performing art training institution which would focused exclusively on acting, directing, stage and set management.

It was then that he decided to establish NPAS with a good deal of support from the Executive Director of Kenya Cultural Centre, Edwin Gichangi.

“Mr Gichangi has been extremely helpful, since he gives us teaching and rehearsal space in Kenya National Theatre. In return we produce several shows there and share the revenue from ticket sales,” Nash says.

Neither Gichangi nor Nash might remember way back when Titus Gathwe headed the National Theatre Drama School, assisted by the late Frances Kimotho. But a number of actors who emerged after Independence came out of NTDS. Unfortunately, the School couldn’t survive since the Government didn’t give it the support it required.

But with the arrival of Mr Gichangi, it would seem the Government has taken a turn for the better. Now at least the public can be assured that quality productions will be staged at Kenya National Theatre thanks to the cooperation between KCC and NPAS.

Nash himself has had an impressive theatrical career which started long before he came to Kenya.

“I was performing on the West End [of London] when I was nine,” he revealed to BD. “My mother started me off from age 5 in a performing arts primary school,” he adds.

In addition to having experience in acting and directing shows, Nash is also a composer and musical conductor.

Currently, he’s rehearsing with his untitled ad hoc musical team. And he most likely will be conducting JC Superstar when it opens next week.

Mkamzee Mwatela plays Herod taunting JC

Fortunately, Nash managed to bring back the cast who performed as Judas, Mugambi Nthige and Herod, Mkamzee Mwatela. But the chorus will be filled with a number of newcomers to the stage since the musical is not only a semi-professional production. It is also part of the NPAS curriculum which the Studio’s students must complete in order to get the degree.

Nash is having further impact on the Kenyan theatre scene since he is working with the Ministry of Education to help devise a proper performing arts curriculum, something which doesn’t yet exist. The country has an amazing annual Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festival, but no drama curriculum.

“We are also working on a new musical with Eric Wainaina,” he adds. “But I’m not at liberty to disclose the details just yet. I can say we plan to stage it by this coming Easter.”

Meanwhile, the local theatre scene is seriously picking up. While Kikuyu comedies have been consistently staged at KCC’s Ukumbi Mdogo, Tash Mitambo and Joseph Babu Wairimu are starring in Scott Perry’s Bookends this Saturday at 6pm and Sunday at 3:30 and 6:30, also at Ukumbi Mdogo.

Finally, Heartstrings Kenya is back with their latest comedy. ‘Below the Belt’ is currently on at Alliance Francaise through Sunday.

Barak Obama's gifted African Heritage House

OBAMA GIFTED AFRICAN HERITAGE HOUSE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted Septembr 6, 2017)

Barack Obama wasn’t born in Kenya, contrary to the fake news story circulated by members of the American ‘Birther’ movement, reportedly founded by the now US President Donald Trump.

But the senior Obama was born here in Kogelo, Siaya County as practically every Kenyan knows well. That was sufficient grounds for the American designer and architect of the African Heritage House, Alan Donovan to ‘gift’ his home (which doubles for a Pan-African art museum) to Obama Junior and his wife, Michelle.

Mr Donovan is not selling African Heritage House to the Obamas, he told Saturday Nation soon after his return from the US. He admits he’d thought long and hard how to ensure the preservation of both his house and all its priceless Pan-African art and artifacts, textiles and jewelry. So when he heard the Obamas were looking for the appropriate place to establish the Obama Library, he recalled the ‘dream’ the former Kenyan Vice President Joseph Murumbi had shared with him shortly before the two men co-founded the African Heritage Pan-African Gallery in 1972.

Alan Donovan with two African Heritage models

“Joe told me he’d dreamed of establishing a Pan-African research institute and gallery where artists from all around the region could come to exhibit as well as study, create and research the arts of Africa,” Donovan said.

The African Heritage House covers the gallery side of Murumbi’s dream, given it contains art and artifacts that Donovan personally picked up while traveling multiple times around the region for AH Gallery. But if anyone could understand the need to establish a Pan-African art institution, it would be the former US President who’d also been the first African American to attain that high office.

So while he was recently in the US, he stopped off in Washington, DC and met with members of the Obama Foundation who confirmed Barack was delighted with Donovan’s ‘gift’.

“They said [Obama] had read everything he could find about African Heritage House and plans to come to Kenya with Michelle next June especially to see the house,” said Donovan whose home has been described as “the most photographed house in Africa.”

The house, both the edifice and the interior, are unique as they reflect the past 50 years of Donovan’s life in Africa. He will officially be celebrating that half-century milestone from October 1^st (coincidentally Nigeria’s National Day) when he will not only launch his second Nigerian Festival (the first in 1972), an event anticipated to be a cultural extravaganza the kind for which African Heritage has historically been recognized, not only in Kenya but also in Europe, the US and South Africa.

He will also be celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Nigeria’s renowned Oshogbo artists’ community which was founded back in 1967 by the German Africanists Ulli and Georgina Beier and Austrian artist Suzanne Wenger, together with Nigerian artists like the late Twins Seven Seven, Jimoh Buraimoh and Nike Seven Seven Davies Okundaye who at the time was Twins’ third wife.

Oshogbo has been recognized globally as one of the central seats of Nigerian (and specifically Yoruba) culture ever since then. It’s a place that’s spawned not only visual artists but poets, playwrights, dancers, acrobats and Adire cloth quilt-makers.

Oshogbo is also where Nike has a workshop where artisans are busy reviving cultural traditions which were otherwise threatened by Western culturally homogenizing trends that have destroyed so many other rich African traditions.

It is from her workshop as well as from her vast Centre for Arts and Culture in Lagos that Nike sent Mr Donovan more than 100 works of art from Oshogbo artists, all of which will be on display during the Festival, which will be held across the city, at Nairobi National Museum, Nairobi Gallery and at the Alliance Francaise.

Nike herself will also be on hand for the Festival opening and to give talks on Oshogbo and her own artistic work. Her exquisite batik art (which is largely inspired by Yoruba religion and folklore) as well as her Centre have made her one of Africa’s most internationally acclaimed female artists.

Nike will be accompanied by one other Oshogbo artist, Jimoh Buraimoh who took part in Donovan’s first Nigeria Festival. His art will be exhibited together with works by Twins Seven Seven, Bisi Fabumni, Jacob Afolabi, Folorunsha Olatunde and his deceased father Asiru Olatunde, the late Rufus Ogundule, and Nike of course.

At the same time, the other award - winning Nigerian artist (possibly the best known of all), Bruce Onobrakpeya will also be present for the Festival opening together with his art. Bruce is acclaimed for his printmaking, painting and sculpture and has exhibited everywhere from the Tate Modern in London and the National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC to the 44^th Venice Biennale and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Lagos.

But all of those shows may well have taken place after Bruce first came to Kenya in 1972 when che and Jimoh were the only Nigerians exhibiting in Nairobi.

Donovan has kept in close touch with all of these artists whose works he got to know well while working in the late Sixties for the USAID in Biafra during that terrible secessionist war. Having studied African art and journalism at UCLA, he’s played an unsung yet pioneering role in appreciating and promoting contemporary African art.

Joseph Murumbi recognized that talent back in 1969 when he first met the man who was exhibiting his collection of Turkana material culture at the now defunct Studio Arts 68. Murumbi had left politics by that time and had become an avid African art collector. For that reason, he requested that Donovan return to northern Kenya where he’d personally collected the Turkana artifacts that he’d brought down to Nairobi for his first exhibition.

Murumbi sent him to collect a duplicate collection of Turkana artifacts, knowing they would one day be precious and important works of indigenous Kenyan culture.

The bond between the two men grew from that point on, up until Murumbi’s death in 1990. But their mutual appreciation and vision enabled them to expose the beauty of contemporary African art, of the kind that the Nairobi public will have the opportunity to see throughout October.

ELAINE KEHEW: PAINTS POP ART KENYAN STYLE

POP ART KENYAN STYLE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted September 5, 2017)

Long before Elaine Kehew became the artist whose exhibition ‘Hand Painted Pop’ opened last Friday night at Village Market, she was a lawyer and rock & roll guitarist. Fortunately, she found her passion in time and started going to her law library job by day and art school at night.

Getting married and moving to Kenya was another transition. It led her into domesticity, lots of shopping and the discovery of a whole new catalogue of consumer items and brand names that she’d never seen before.

“I’d never heard of Cowboy cooking fat or Farasi Kibiriti or even Fanta orange before we came to Kenya,” said Elaine who admits she’s been fascinated by Kenyan brand names, all of which she sees as part of Kenya’s own popular culture.

But if she’s been intrigued by all of these iconic consumer items, she’s also been inspired by Western pop art, especially by artists like Andy Warhol who was so enamored with popular brands, including Hollywood celebrities, that he painted everything from Campbell’s soup cans to iconic Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

Warhol was sometimes criticized for taking ordinary consumer items and making them the subjects of his art. It was especially true when he didn’t just paint one soup can or one portrait of Marilyn. He’d paint four!

But that was Warhol’s point. He was painting what seemed obvious and mundane to make it stand out as emblematic of America’s ‘pop’ular consumer culture. Thus, the title of his style of art became known as ‘pop art’.

In a similar way, Elaine has painted what she’s seen to be Kenya’s own contemporary pop culture. It consists of common consumer items, most of which can be found in any local street-corner kiosk. That’s where one can invariably find everything from Big G chewing gum, Kimbo cooking fat, Kenyon canned vegetables and assorted brands of wooden or wax matches.

The public might not see anything special about her ‘portrait’ of Big G, except maybe if one remembers blowing bubbles with the popular gum as a child (or you chewed khat). But for Elaine, the gum inspired her to paint a diptych, one portion of which contains a full-size stick of the chewing gum; the other enlivened with three kids all having fun blowing bubbles with it.

She further proves her point about ‘pop’ culture with several omnipresent items which she paints in clusters. For instance, she created nine versions of Kenyon cans, each one in a painting containing a can labeled with a different bean, vegetable, or githeri mix.

“I’m hoping someone will want all nine [cans], since they’re really meant to be together,” said Elaine who confessed she wouldn’t mind if the cans went as solo works or even as three sets of triptychs.

That’s also the case with her ‘kibiriti’ clusters. Each of the match boxes (painted 3D wooden ‘sculptures’) has its own original title and logo. But altogether they reflect a Kenyan consciousness of the need to create a unique brand that can stand out in contrast to all the rest.  

How else can one explain the ingenuity of calling one box Flora, while others are named Kuku, Farasi, Happy, Kifaru and Leopard?

Yet Elaine’s show isn’t just a commentary on Kenya’s pop culture. Her ‘Dr Dawa’ with his can of Lucky Star sardines looks a bit like a slickster salesman. Her ‘Guns and Butter’ portrait of a blond lady complaining about no butter in the shops appears oblivious of the guided missiles flying overhead. The artist seems to be ironically questioning priorities: valuing guns more than feeding people.

Finally, it’s her bottle of Sprite that’s the most cryptic piece in her show. It discloses her subtle questioning of the Sprite slogan, ‘Obey’, suggesting a feminist challenge to that order.

There are several semi-abstract pieces in Elaine’s show. All have significance to her; but again, it’s open-ended. What is obvious that she can create purely beautiful paintings, like one stained-glass window-like work  called ‘Swahili’ and two lovely lilies that have a rationale all their own.

WHAT’S UP IN KENYAN ART

+ Tonight Samuel Githui’s solo exhibition, ‘ Hatua na Kuruka’ opens at Kuona Trust.

 + Michael Soi’s intricate body paintings up at Circle Art Gallery

+ Alexandra Spyratos’ ‘Earth Roots’ exhibition at Polkadot Gallery

+ Olivia Pentergast’s paintings up at One Off Gallery

+ Nigerian Festival opens October 1^st at Nairobi Gallery, Alliance Francaise & Nairobi National Museum.

ALAN ROOT: ACCLAIMED WILDLIFE FILMMAKER PASSED ON AUG.26, 2017

ACCLAIMED FILMMAKER PUT KENYAN WILDLIFE ON THE WORLD STAGE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted September 1, 2017)

Alan Root, the renowned wildlife filmmaker who died late last month on August 26 at his home in Nanyuki, was a Briton by birth. But he spent more than 70 of his 80 years living and working here and all across Africa.

Diagnosed with glioblastoma (a cancerous brain tumor) in April, he retained his adventurous spirit up to the end. With his third wife Fran Michelson and their two sons, Root went ‘on safari’ to Alaska despite the diagnosis.

But it was shortly after his return that he passed on peacefully at his place on the edge of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

A man whose films are said to have brought ‘the magic of Africa to millions” of television audiences all around the world, Root made almost two dozen wildlife films. The majority of them were shot in collaboration with his wife Joan in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. And many won them awards, including an Oscar, two Emmys, a Peabody, and one from the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. The body of their films even earned Alan an OBE from Queen Elizabeth, making him an officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Among his most acclaimed films are “Baobab: Portrait of a Tree”(1973), ‘The Year of the Wildebeest “(1974), “Balloon Safari (1975) and “Mysterious Castles of Clay” (1978) which was narrated by Orson Welles and scripted by Root himself.

His forte was filming wildlife on their own terms in their natural habitat and without human interference. In fact, he is credited for pioneering a unique film style that made the animals the stars and the sets, their ecosystems. In that way, he introduced a myriad of outsiders (many of whom were lured to this region as tourists by his documentary films) to the habits of everything from termites, leopards and hippos to wildebeests, crocodiles and baby flamingos.

Root is even credited with introducing the American zoologist Dian Fossey to the renowned silver-back gorillas of Rwanda which she subsequently studied in the wild for over 18 years. Fossey died mysteriously and her killers were never found. But her life in the bush was made into the movie, “Gorillas in the Mist” which Root helped to shoot. Fossey was played by Sigourney Weaver.

His own introduction to mountain gorillas could conceivably have put an end to his filmmaking career since one chest-beating silver back claimed a chunk of his calf. According to Root as per the autobiography he wrote and published in 2012, that huge primate came running out from the forest towards him “like a Doberman on steroids.”

Root survived, but the gorilla incident is just one of the many scarring run-ins that he had over his illustrious career. There was the leopard that lunged and bit him on his backside while he was filming in the Serengeti; the angry hippo that bit off a “Coke bottle” sized hunk of his thigh while he was filming underwater in Mzima Springs in Tsavo National Park, and there was even a puff adder whose bite gave him an anaphylactic shock that nearly killed him. Again, he survived but he lost his right index finger which meant he had to reconfigure the ways that he flew his helicopter, steered his air balloon, drove his Land Rover and even flew his Cessna airplane.

Root hadn’t begun life as a rich boy. He was born in London, but his father moved the family to Kenya to take up a job managing a corn beef plant. Root was just nine, and his affinity for animals was already apparent as he kept a host of creatures (including a load of snakes) in the family’s backyard in London. So it was no surprise that he’d one day make movies about African wildlife or that he and Joan transformed their home on the banks of Lake Naivasha into an animal sanctuary for every wild orphan that they found in the course of their filmmaking.

Root started making films about animals soon after he arrived in Kenya in 1946. Born May 12, 1937, he began making movies with a simple 8 millimeter camera while in his early teens. He dropping out of school at aged 16, having found his passion and figuring out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

His first professional film job was working with the German father and son team of Bernard and Michael Grizmek on a project filming the Seregeti Reserve for the Frankfurt Zoo. By a fluke accident, the son died after his plane collided with a vulture and crashed. The father was devastated, and the project came to a halt until Root took up the challenge and finished shooting the film.

‘Serengeti Shall Not Die” earned Root an Academy Award (an Oscar) for Best Documentary Film in 1969. That win set him on a path that led to his making movies produced by BBC, National Geographic and Anglia for its TV series “Survival”.

But what made the Roots’ movies so original was the storytelling skill of Alan. Every film that they made featured a narrative which allowed audiences to learn about hippos, leopards and wildebeests’ ecosystems and lifestyles.

In the words of Sir David Attenborough, writing in 1979, “Alan Root understands animals better than many zoologists do.”

In fact, any number of film critics have claimed that Root’s cinematic work with wildlife rivalled that of David Attenborough’s and Jacques Cousteau’s. He may be better known outside of Kenya than within; but he has left a legacy and treasure trove of movies which undoubtedly will endure the test of time. They will be that much more precious in light of the terrible poaching that has been going on for years and decimated the herds and flocks that he loved to film over the years.

At the funeral of his first wife Joan, Root is said to have wept and lamented over what he called the “heartbreaking holocaust” against African wildlife. He sadly described the cause of wildlife conservation a “disastrous failure”.

When he and Joan divorced in 1990, she had remained in their Lake Naivasha home. And it was there that she was murdered, apparently by the very poachers that she had been advocating against. Her fight had been to save the endangered marine life inside the lake that was being poached mercilessly.

The American journalist Mark Seed wrote about Joan’s murder in a Vanity Fair article and then a book, both entitled “Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa.” Unfortunately, her case was never solved, but the vital yet behind-the-scenes story of her role in the Roots’ rising film career is thankfully recorded in Seed’s thoughtful book.

Even more fortunate is that Alan Root wrote his autobiography in 2012 entitled “Ivory, Apes and Peacocks: Animals, Adventure and Discovery in the Wild Places of Africa.”

But a lot of Root’s life was revealed years before in an extended essay written in 1999 in ‘The New Yorker’ by George Plimpton entitled “The Man who was Eaten Alive.”

Root will be remembered fondly not just for his remarkable wildlife films but for his daredevil streak and adventurous spirit that allowed him to prove the purity of his passion for nature and his desire to capture its beauty before it got lost.

THE MISS INDIA WORLDWIDE KENYA 2017

KENYAN INDIAN PAGEANT COMBINES BEAUTY AND BRAINS

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted August 23, 2017)

The Miss India Worldwide Kenya (MIWK) pageant was launched in 2000. But after that, there was a 15 year hiatus which only got broken two years back.

This international beauty and brains pageant was revived in 2015 and tomorrow night, the final competition for the 2017 Miss IWK will be held at the new Diamond Plaza 2 in Parklands.

It took the 24 year old 2015 MIWK award winner Aliza Rajah to confirm the continuity of this unique beauty competition. She’s taken responsibility for organizing both the 2016 and the current MIWK contests.

This year as in years past, the Kenyan winner will head to New York City to the Miss India Worldwide headquarters where the pageant will feature finalists from 40 countries.

The 40 are countries where sizeable Indian communities reside and contribute to their respective economies. Among the countries to be represented at the finals are Australia, Canada, Spain, South Africa, UK and USA.

Aliza didn’t win in New York in 2015. But that didn’t dampen her appreciation for the competition. On the contrary, at last Saturday night’s press conference held at the new Concord Hotel, she explained how she’d received so much in the process of going to the finals that she wanted to keep the competition alive for young Kenyan women who would come after her.

“I felt like ‘a winner’ irrespective of whether I’d won or lost the contest,” she said. “Just being part of the event was an eye-opening experience,” added Aliza who now runs the MIWK contest through her company, Eventique. She also has her own fashion line and website. She also runs the Shesha Lounge in the Concord Hotel.

The same attitude of appreciation expressed by Aliza was shared by the 2016 MIWK winner, Finali Galaiya, 22. She also went to New York but didn’t win. Ever so, she’s been inspired ever since by the question she was asked at the MIW finals. It was “What would [she] do to bridge the gap between Asian and African Kenyans?”

The question has become a challenge that she’s taken seriously. She now works with a number of charities, including one foundation led by Sarah Obama, the grandmother of the former US President Barack Obama.

Both Aliza and Finali believe one of the most important things they gained from the pageant was self-confidence. It’s a quality that the MIWK choreographer and coach Bhargav Joshi, 25, hoped he’s instilled in the ten contestants during the rigorous three-week training that he just went through with them.

Ranging in age from 17 to 26, the young women have been coached by Joshi in everything from verbal skills, poise and presentation to walking the runway. On Saturday night, they’ll be wearing both Indian and Indo-Western fashions provided by Suvidha of India and Shenu Gadu of Nairobi respectively.

Joshi also taught the young ladies to perform together for the Saturday night pageant, which is open to the public. His training also featured largely when they displayed their specific skills yesterday at the MIWK Talent Night which was again held at the Concord Hotel.

Speaking to a number of the contestants last Saturday night, I found none of them seemed to lack poise or self-confidence. Most of them were students, like Hiral Gohil, 20, who is studying Business at the United States International University (USIU) and is also a freelance artist.

Shivani Shah, 20, is a student of International Relations at Nottingham University who spends half her year in school; the other half she spends in Kenya working with charities like Freedom from Hunger and the Helping Hands Trust.

Shivani is also a former NTV children’s show presenter. She ‘anchored’ the G3 show from aged 9 up until she was 18.

Judges who’ll be participating in both the Talent Night and tomorrow’s final pageant are a well-kept secret. Aliza would only disclose that they include members of the media, the arts and the business community.

The main sponsor of the Miss India Worldwide Kenya is Crown Paint, represented last Saturday by the company’s CEO Rakesh Rao.

Tickets to the MIWK pageant can be obtained tomorrow night at Diamond Plaza 2 or before the event either from the Concord Hotel or Shenu Fashions on General Mathenge Drive.